Nothing frustrates me more as a fan than seeing rookies hold out. What have these guys proven that allows them to garner such high salaries without ever taking the NFL field. This is a topic of discussion that started yesterday in our Valhalla Forum.

As pointed out; the NFL and the NFLPA has allowed this process to get ridiculously out of hand, and that rookies are holding out and waiting to see what the players around them garner before they will sign a deal based on their draft position.

The solution is actually simple; the problem is that the business of the NFL is too good right now for it to make any sense to the powers be.

In my opinion; the rookies that are drafted should be put on a cap limit for their base salary. This will streamline the contract process greatly. This doesn't mean that they player can't get paid, they simply integrate a performance based salary program that based on measures their base salary can increase by x percent based on what they did the previous season, as well as x rushing yards will garner a $ bonus for the current season.

In the end the best solution for most sports to to garner a salary to players based on performance. Make they players earn their paychecks; not just get a huge payday and slack off after they get paid.

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After posting this commentary; VV Team Member Luft Krigare added his thoughts on the VV Forum. It is a great expansion of this topic that I had to add it:

That is a good idea, but having a rookie pay scale with addendums for positions like quarterback along with Skol's perfomance based (measurable, like number of sacks per number of plays, pancake blocks, hurries, passes defended, interceptions, etc.) solves the one segment of the whole proccess causing this, the agents.

Make a base pay scale that pays x dollars for the position drafted. Then the player can add to it from what he does on the field. If he doesn't play, why should he get more than the minimum for his draft position.

You would install escalators for play, and by position. The quaterback position would have a quicker escalator than others due to it's value, but all would have the perfomance based escalators based on the plays (could be games, but actual plays is more accurate) that they participated in.

To figure out cap numbers, the team would count all the maximum escalators that a player could make, then at the end of the season, just like the unearned performance bonusses of today, they get placed back in the next year's available cap. Rob Brezinski has been doing this for years.

You would have to build in automatic pay scale adjustments based on total cap numbers as established by the league every year, but that is a simple formula. Then set up a review committee every time the NFLPA union and the NFL sit down to renegotiate or extend the labor agreement, to evaluate and tweak the pay scale where deemed necessary.

A system like this would allow the stars to get paid appropriately. It still allows their agents to get a percentage of the overall pay that the player earns, not just of the base pay, that has had them whining about a set scale. It also would motivate them to market and prep their players better in the run up to the draft, because the higher the draft position, the higher their percentage.

All that needs to be done now is convince the NFLPA that it is in their best interest, it gets more money available for the vets, but still lets the agents make their buck. The agents are the ones that have been influencing against an approach like this in the past, because if there is a base pay scale, why would you need an agent? That's why a base pay scale with performance escalators, as suggested by Skol4Life, can better solve the issue and get all draftees into camp on time. It should make the league, union, agents, and more over, the fans happy to see the start of training camp every year, because there will be no more hold outs by rookies.